Take a chance on me

Will you take a chance on me?

If you had the ability, the skill and the tools to help someone in need, would you?

How far would you let someone deteriorate before intervening?

If there was the smallest possibility of changing someone’s life for the better, would you do it?

These are all questions I want answered. You see, I recently got my results back from a recent MRI and CT scan of my left hip, and the findings were not great. Multiple cysts, bone growth on the head of the femur, irregularities within the acetabulum and fraying of the labrum. To simplify, most are de-generative changes which is accelerating the arthritis in my left hip joint. I was only diagnosed with very early arthritic changes back in February ’10, where previously there was none.

I have been in severe pain for many months now, and most doctors attribute it to chronic pain. If you have read my previous blog posts and know my previous history, you know I have been through quite a lot and have had many surgeries for problems within the left hip cavity. At this point in time, and for quite a few months now, I have been unable to get out of this acute pain and its levels of 7 and above out of 10 on a basic pain scale. Before each surgery I have had, multiple scans have shown a proper cause for the pain I'm experiencing within my left hip. Once again scans have given a decent cause for the acute pain I am in. I feel like I am suffering from ‘Chronic Acute Pain’ because over the course of 4 years now, pain has subsided after surgery, and yet when something goes wrong once more, scans prove there is a cause of some sort and surgery has fixed it. Now the problem is; and this is where the chronic pain part comes in, is because of all the doctors and nurses I have seen, they have taken quite a long time to reach the point of operating, and the pain continues up to this point and becomes quite severe however always subsides afterwards. Now this is where my questions start to come in.

I have recently seen a new orthopaedic surgeon, who after consultation, and reading the results of my latest scans seems hesitant to help, in case he makes the pain worse. This is a similar situation I had with my previous surgeon.

This is a risk I am willing to take. Is he?

If you had the ability, the skill and the tools to help someone in need, would you?

How far will you let me deteriorate before intervening?

If there was the smallest possibility of changing someone’s life for the better, would you do it?

Even though I am no more qualified then the person next to me in the field of medicine and how you operate, if you see a patient in severe pain, and there is obvious arthritic changes within the structure of the joint and you know it will only continue to get worse, wouldn’t it be easier and more helpful to the patient (me) to intervene those changes now and take that risk that you may actually help that patient, even if it’s the smallest percentage, to give them a better quality of life than they had before?

I have continued to hear that my age is a problem in regard to a hip replacement, well so is my quality of life. I have none. If you can help, you may actually be able to give me back some quality, so the rest of my body doesn’t deteriorate either. I see a number of specialists for problems that have occurred from a lack of a quality of life. My body is deteriorating because I can’t do the normal things that a 24 year old might do. I am living like an elderly person, relying on almost full time care from my 60 year old mother. I am filling my body with pain controlling medicines just to get through each day, which I barely do. I am slowly losing the confidence I once had to be a teacher. I know I would make a great teacher, my prac skills have shown so. I'm intelligent, smart, funny, kind, practical and fully aware that I will never return to being the person I once was, and be able to do the things I used to do. But please…

I beg of you, please take a chance on me.

what would you like to know?

I thought I'd write an off the cuff blog asking you guys what you'd like to know about me. I'm fairly honest in my blogs, and for those who follow but don't know me, I'd love to know what you'd like to ask.
please comment any questions and I'll create a blog answering them. I think this would be quite fun.
Thanks your time and effort is hugely appreciated :)

xx Jen

The pain of painkillers

I know it’s been months since I last posted anything, however I thought that I might just skip ahead of what’s happened over the last few months and discuss something that is in topic in my life now, and it’s quite a serious topic; Painkillers.

Disclaimer: ** Please take note that all medications should be taken seriously and under the advice your doctor. These views are my own and based on my personal experiences. The medications I am speaking about are addictive and should never be abused or taken without your doctor’s consent. **

At some stage in our lives, we’ve all taken a couple of panadol, maybe even some panadine (panadol + codeine), to get us over that cold, or headache. Some of us have even taken much stronger pain medications that have been prescribed by our doctor. I’m planning on discussing not only how painkillers work, but how our bodies, mine in particular react to the medications and when we deprive our body of these ‘ingredients’ we use frequently and long term, when taken by people, when they live with chronic pain.

When we take pain medication, it doesn’t have an effect on the part of the body that is hurting; it takes effect on our brain. To be precise it takes effect in ‘three specialized regions of the brain: the physical sensation region that identifies and localizes the pain (somatosensory cortex), the emotional feeling region that experiences suffering (limbic system), and the thinking region that assigns meaning to the pain (frontal cortex)’. Source

To simplify this, any type of analgesics (painkillers), don’t effect the area that’s injured, they simply block the pain signals going to the brain, or interfere with they way the brain interoperates these signals. This in turn affects the body’s nervous system so that pain messages are scrambled.

There are two types of painkillers: Non-narcotics and Narcotics. I'm mostly on the latter unfortunately. I won’t go into the difference between the two, too much because I want to share my story. If you’re interested in the types of painkillers, you can find infomation here.

As I’ve just mentioned I'm mostly on the narcotic variety of painkillers. Narcotics can involve much more than the generalised assumption of opiates like heroin or morphine etc but it also includes codeine which in lower doses is available over the counter at your pharmacy and even your body’s natural narcotic; endorphins.

Over the past 11 months, my body has endured an increased amount of narcotic medicine including oxycontin, oxycodine, and also morphine and pethidine while hospitalised but also during this latest experience, it’s been the highest dosages of this forms of painkillers I’ve ever been on. While my pain medication expands much beyond these, in the form of various types of muscle relaxants and anti-depressants, it’s reducing the oxycontin that has the most effect on me. Oxycontin is similar to morphine, but it’s a slow release medication, that has a 12 hour controlled release of its ingredients to give you greater control over your pain long term.

Over the past 8-9 weeks I have started my journey into reducing my body’s dependence on this drug. As pleased as I am to say “I feel that I no longer need the same amount of this medication anymore”, I know my body is addicted to it. This addiction means that to reduce the side effects of coming off this medication, I have to take it slowly and carefully, so that I don’t make myself ill and cause serious harm to my body. Because of the type of pain and injury I have, this is the 4^th time I have started the withdrawal process of coming of my pain medication, and I hope it’s to be the 4^th time, I will do so, successfully. At this moment (8^th June 2010) I'm 1/3 of the way on this journey of reducing my pain medications, so I can once more become effective and efficient in my daily life. (Although I know many people function quite normally on these types of medications, I still find it quite foreign, and don’t like the way it takes control over my body).

The first two times I have done this process quite quickly and with little side effects as I was not on the oxycontin for any longer than 4 months. During my 3^rd experience with this drug, I was taking it for a period of 10 months before I started “coming down” and I can honestly say I really felt the side effects of reducing the meds too quickly. I’ve experienced vomiting, diarrhoea, nausea, cramping, headaches, hot and cold sweats, and loss of appetite to name a few. This was 2 years ago. I remember while going through this, that I said I was never going to take oxycontin again, if I was to be in a similar condition. Well here I am again. Having reduced my intake by a 1/3 now, very slowly some other side effects are starting to show as I continue to reduce my body’s dependence on the drug. I'm already starting to experience:

• Nausea
• Cramping
• Diarrhoea
• Headaches
• Fatigue
• Night sweats

…and this is just so far. Coming off oxycontin and its withdrawal is often compared to a person going through a ‘heroin withdrawal’ in terms of its intensity. The only we have some control over this experience is to take the time to reduce the medication slowly, in small amounts and over a long period of time. Sometimes I think it would be easier to come of the medication easier and much quicker by reducing it every 3-5 days as opposed to every 1-3 weeks and just get the withdrawal pains over and done with instead of drawing it out, but I have to remind myself to do it the healthy way that wont harm my body, or stress it out too much! I hate to think what it has done to my overall health in both my brain and my organs!!!

I hope I’ve explained this so it translates that we have to be aware of what we take to manage our pain, but most of all like food – make us aware of what we are putting in our body’s and its affects afterwards.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate it and any other input, or expiriences is welcome so feel free to comment!

- Jen xx

**note: when I write my blogs, I write the way I would speak most of the time, and I apologize if things don’t quite make sense or don’t come out clear. I have a tendency to write at night, and this is when I'm most medicated.

9 days and counting...

So I'm currently on the operation countdown. Or is it countdown operation? Anyway this is one operation I am not apprehensive about. I hope my surgeon does a good cleanout of my hip joint, has a thorough look around inside and out of the joint, while also checking out the trachanter (the boney bit that juts out of your leg bone). As mentioned in another one of my blog updates, this operation sort of sets the precedent for a hip replacement, and my pain treatment afterwards. The latest X-rays etc have shown arthritic deterioration of the bone, and although I shouldn’t hope for it, I do wish that there is enough deterioration for a hip replacement. You see, I don’t wish to go through this pain one more time before having a replacement. The hip replacement is the final end of the road, and I’d like to see the light at the end of the tunnel if I can jam in as many idioms into this sentence. Because this is the trigger for my pain, I don’t understand why we can’t remove the source of this trigger, and in return I have less pain. It seems like simply logic to me, however everyone who suffers from pain knows life is not that simple and logic sometimes doesn’t apply.

Anyway on the 3^rd of Feb, I’ll be going under the knife once more. I'm due in at the hospital at 6.45am which I guess means I'm first or second on the list for the day. I'm looking forward to my “last meal” as I’ve been calling it (my mother told me off for saying so) but I’ve chosen to eat at Meccah Bah in at docklands where they have one of the best Turkish roast lamb pizza’s I’ve ever eaten, and for entrée we’ll have mussels with the chickpea dipping sauce. I don’t know how they do it, but it’s the only way I will eat mussels! Yum!

Anyway I'm looking forward to updating soon.

Take care,

Jen xx

Life, Goals and Expectancies.

Hi you,

A friend of mine recently made a comment in her latest blog post about her previous goals and achievements and how her life has changed, now that those goals are now not achievable. I was thinking about this the night before she had posted. What were my goals prior to my accident and where is my life going now?

To begin with; I’ve always had a passion for sport and exercise and probably from around the time I was 15 or 16, I began to have an interest in health too. In year 10 we had a seemingly silly PE elective that was mandatory and didn’t have a good reputation from previous years. However this PE subject which was mostly about fitness with two physical classes each week, and this is when I decided I’d change my life around. During the course of this subject I went from an overweight teenager, who although enjoyed netball and many other team sports, was not technically“fit”, to a student who was enthusiastic about fitness and health, with a teacher who not only encouraged me personally but helped me gain control over my body again. From this I went onto achieve many things including a couple of Great Victorian Bike Rides!

This teacher among with my VCE PE and health teachers are the ones who inspired me to become a teacher myself, and help other students not only change their view of Phys Ed, but also enjoy themselves and begin to have an understanding of their body even if Phys Ed is not their preferred choice of subjects. These teacher's all had special qualities which i'd love to be able to emulate in some way and I definantly want to achieve a level of teaching where I can help students enjoy their studies they way my VCE PE teacher taught to me.

So I guess you could say I knew exactly what I wanted to be since year 10, and that goal hasn’t changed since.

Throughout VCE I undertook in a subject called Outdoor education and environmental studies. I thoughourly enjoyed not only the physical aspects of this subject such as camping, hiking, rock climbing, surfing etc, but also learning about the environment such as the different ecosystems around us, and what we can do to help them. After VCE, I enrolled in a university course of this nature, Outdoor education at La Trobe University. I deferred this course for a year for many reasons, one of which was my dad had been diagnosed with cancer again (for the 4^th or 5^th time), and I wasn’t ready to leave home. Throughout the year I had off my goals did not change. I even volunteered back at my old high school to help out with the outdoor ed program throughout the year. When it came time to ensure my place back in University, I found that they had begun a new course that was a double major of both Phys ed and Outdoor ed under an education degree. Absolutely perfect! I thought I’d struck gold and become the luckiest person alive when I was accepted. Particularly when I had to apply as a mature age student and only had one of nine places to fill for the non-year 12’s!

I had a pretty successful first semester and in second semester of my first year I had my accident. I continued for another year and a half taking withheld grades for the subjects I couldn’t complete because of the physical demands, and I continued to believe I was going to get better. By the time I had reached my 3^rd year of a 4 year course, my health in regard to my hip was going downhill fast. I took a year off, and after some deep thought decided to enrol in a double major of phys ed and HEALTH. It was very similar to my previous course, it was at the same campus, and best yet I could carry my completed PE subjects into the new course, making me have an almost complete PE major before I had even started a new 4 year course.

(2006 Alps trip, La Trobe Uni, Bendigo)

Once again, I had an even more successful first semester of uni, gaining high distinctions in 3 out of 4 subjects and missing out on the 4^th HD by only a few marks. By second semester, things had begun to unravel once again. The same story of which you have been previously reading about in earlier blog posts once again consumed my life and pushed out my studies. Now the New Year has begun, and once again I’m awaiting my now 4^th hip surgery. My expectancy of my goal of becoming a PE/health teacher is declining.

I’m a good student. My grades have shown that. I’m passionate about my subjects and what they are about. However….

I wonder how much more my body can take. I wonder how much more I can emotionally take and most recently what will my future hold? Will I be able to complete my university studies? Will I be able to spend the 8am to 5pm maybe even until 7pm days surrounded by students? Can I handle that? Emotionally and physically? I promised myself I’d never be a teacher who stood on the sidelines. I always planned to be actively involved because I think the ones that do make the best teachers.

I’ve spent the better part of just over three years on heavy prescription pain meds, and I’m unsure for how much longer I will be on them. I have a decent amount of nerve damage in my left leg which means that I can only achieve 2/3^rd’s of the strength the other leg can have, in other words, I’ve lost of 30% of my strength output. I’m now on anti-depressants (much to my despair) because I had reached a point where I can no longer emotionally deal with my physical pain.

I may have only been talking about one goal here, but it is a major part of my life right now and I’ve been thinking a lot about it. A lot of effort and time has gone into this goal, and many achievements have been made. It’s not only my time and effort, but those of my high school teachers, my lecturers, and my family and friends for getting me to this point.

I feel I have achieved so much, but yet I’m so far away from where I want to be. I had planned to study oversea's during first semester of my 3rd year. Will I ever get there? I am about to take more time off from my uni studies to recover from surgery and to come off the medication. Whats next for me? Am I destined to do what i've wanted to do for the last 7 years of my life?

It's hard enough worrying about having enough money to pay rent and the bills, in a home i hardly live in, let alone what does the future hold?

Take care and much love,

Jen xx

PS: post allows annoyomous comments

friend envy

Hi,
Wow two blog posts in one night. No, I hope to make this short and sweet. A friend of mine, who I’ve commented on before, was the one who influenced me to start a blog of my own. As she continues her Journey through chronic pain, she continues to write in a way which I’m amazed at. I wish I was able to say the things she does in her own blog, as often I feel almost exactly the same way.

Last night she posted a heartfelt entry, in which I would like to take a few words of what she said, so I can express a similar feeling. I'd most of all like to speak about envy and jealousy.

I often wonder if my friends (who I care deeply about) know the full extent of what I’m going through. Chronic pain in any shape is more debilitating than just the physical effects. It affects me emotionally and mentally as well. Quite a while ago in this recent series of my life, I hit an emotional wall very early in the sequence of events in which I was more than ready to give up. I simply couldn’t fight anymore. The more pain I was in, the more I cried. I couldn’t take the constant battle of life, the simplest of tasks such as showering and going to the toilet was so incredibly difficult. The fact is I’m ALWAYS in pain. I take around 20 pain killers a day. My head is a maze of cotton wool. My life now resolves around a small portion yet critical part of my body. The hip is such a detailed, complicated structure compared to a knee or ankle, not that those body parts can’t cause the same amount of pain. However when surgery is involved, there are many more muscles to cut through before you can get to the structure that is a ball and socket.
Many of you know that I have a hip problem but to be more specific I suffer from chronic pain which has come from the length of time that this injury has affected my body. I suffer from nerve damage which has meant I have lost a third of the strength that my leg could expel, and finally I have a constant mechanical problem of the hip joint which is what has lead me into this journey. I hope that this explanation helps you understand a bit clearer why I am this way. Chronic pain is a lonely experience that has become my personal battle. Because of this I want to not be forgotten, and a far memory, because you are all in my heart, everyday.

This friend I talked about earlier perfectly penned a post weeks ago about ‘friend envy’. This is exactly what I have. I loved to see the pictures of parties and clubs you had gone to, I loved to hear about what happened and who said what to whom. However I miss that I could not join you. I hate that my life evolves around my health and hip problem, but I love that you ask how I am. I hate that all I have to really talk about is my hip, and I’m sure you’re sick of it too. I thank you for continuing to invite me to events, although I generally have to decline, I thank you for visiting me when I’m in hospital, but hate that I’m home alone.

Although I did not intend for that to sound like the poem out of ‘10 things I hate about you’ it’s all true. I admit that I’m jealous that you can live a fairly carefree life, complete your goals and further your life and yet don’t have to worry about the consequences apart from maybe the hangover you might suffer. I don’t know if you have other consequences from this joy you get out of life, however one day I’d like to join you, and hope that you accept that although I am envious, I would like to be free from what’s holding me back. But I am proud of your achievements and happy you reach your goals, but I miss that I don’t get to share those times with you. I love catching up with you, because I thank you that you care enough to make the effort, especially when I can’t return the favour.

Although I took more words from Hayley’s post than I meant to, it’s because it’s true. You can read Hayley’s post about friend envy Here . We lead very similar yet extremely different lives. I hope I haven’t spoken too harshly, or made you feel things you shouldn’t; I just wanted to express my feelings in the only way I know how. I hope the words came out clear, as this haze in my head never disapears.
I thank you once more for reading this and you comments are most appreciated (you don’t need an account to post a comment).

Love and all that matters,
Jen Xxo

December: point form.

Hi you guys,
I apologise for putting off blogging for so long. I’m not quite sure why, because I don’t fill my days like a normal 23 year old would during uni holidays due to my hell of a life. I use this place not only to vent but to almost document what happens in my life.
I have a massive tendency to blah on a bit and I’m hoping to compress December into a not too massive read for you.

- Pain got worse. Saw my surgeon; he’s decided to operate after three months of declaring there was nothing more he could do. He examined my hip for much longer than he normally would and I believe he must of felt something unusual, to have such a change of mind. However I am happy for this outcome because WE ALL knew I have a mechanical problem in the joint so now he can fix it! I’m not over-optimistic that this will take my pain away, however I know for certain it will reduce the high levels of the unliveable pain I have been going through. Surgery date: 3rd Feb.

- I have been in and out of my GP’s office for reasons other than needing medication. My thyroid tests have comeback abnormal. This is a first for me, and it also explains why I have put on almost 5kg since the end of October when I’ve been sleeping most of the time, and have a good-decent diet. I had the levels retested within a month of finding out that I had a new problem, and I found that not only were my THS levels up, so were my T3 and T4. Unfortunately due to the medical marvel that I am, when one (T3 or T4) is up, the other goes down. Mine are both up? Regardless, I cannot afford to put on weight. However I cannot move to exercise particularly cardio! Although the problem is my hip, it’s not only affecting the left leg, but also the buttock and my back. It hurts to even sit on the loo!
Also thanks to my current lifestyle of the last 4-5 months of either being on the couch or in bed, my lungs have gathered a fair amount of gunk on them and in the past month its been quite hard to breath and I’m out of breath quite quickly and have been very wheezy. In the last week I’ve had a chest X-ray to rule out pneumonia and also a spirometry test. The spirometry test, I did today and boy is breathing hard! I felt like I had maxed out at the gym, my body was so tired!

- Christmas was lovely as usual. Every Christmas day, the whole of my father’s side of the family has Christmas dinner at my Aunty and Uncles place in Geelong. They live in a lovely big old property, and it always brings back fond memories. This year, my cousin Suzy had gotten a kitten, so I spent most of the day playing with this adorable black and white ball called Jenkins.

I received lovely gifts, mostly gift cards, Sex and the city DVD (season 5… they had sold out when I bought the rest in 2007) and a small amount of cash. Mum is yet to choose her Christmas gift as yet, as she wants a steam mop. Making sure I keep money saved for that.
Christmas day was the first day I had gone without a nap in months. I slept for 22 hours the following day.

- I visited and met my brand new cousin (my cousin’s baby) in the few days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Chloe is gorgeous and growing stronger and bigger each time I see pictures of her.


We (mum and I) stayed with family friends in Myrtleford for 3 days, and as well of receiving the love of Billy, their 9 month old border collie… whos still all arms and legs! He's such a loving dog.

And we travelled out to Milawa, to see the cheese factory (oh how I heart cheese) and Brown Brothers winery. Unfortunately we only got to the winery, but it was lovely especially since I’m not a fan of red or white wine, I got to try a few sparkling wines, and with the help of a twitter friend, settled on a lovely fruity bottle of Zibbibio. I finally came back home and spent new years nanna style as I was simply too tired from the car trip.

I hope that this wasn’t too much of a bullet point document of my December for you. My next post which I will also write tonight may be much better.
Peace and love you guys,
Jen xx